Ingredients:
Per 4 servings

Preparation:

Clean the peppers, wash them and cut into thin regular strips. In a pan containing some oil, gently fry the onion, and then add half of the garlic, chopped.

Step 2

Add the peppers and a little chilli. Adjust the seasoning and when cooked, reduce to a pulp using a blender. Leave to emulsify with a little of the pasta cooking liquid.

Step 3

In a large casserole, cook the pasta in abundant boiling salted water. Stir with a wooden fork to avoid it sticking.

Step 4

Put the remaining oil into a large pan and gently fry the garlic and chilli. Flavour with torn basil leaves. Add the cooked pasta and season with the pepper sauce. Finish off the dish with slivers of Parmesan cheese.

Food History

It is very difficult to define exactly when pasta production began. One might, with a little imagination, dare to say that pasta has existed since man learned how to create things using his hands. Many centuries before the birth of Christ, the Etruscans, the ancient inhabitants of Tuscany, and the Greeks produced the first types of pasta recorded in history. However, dry pasta has more recent origins: the Arabs were the first to dry pasta for storage purposes. And it wasn’t until the beginning of the 2nd millennium that dry pasta arrived in Italy, and more precisely in Sicily, where in 1150 the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi said that near Palermo people were making string-like pasta called triya.Sicily quickly became the center of dried pasta production in Europe and, beginning in the 12th century, began exporting it to the rest of Italy where it was known by the generic name “maccheroni",referring to all pasta shapes made from hard durum wheat. After arriving in the mainland, pasta become gradually more popular, until becoming, at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, not just a dish loved by the Italians, but an actual symbol of Italy throughout the world.

Did you know that…

The spiciness of peperoncini is measured with the Scoville scale? This type of measurement, often used for testing chemicals, was originally done based on human sensibility: in order to measure just how spicy a peperoncino is, its extract is diluted in water and sugar until its spiciness can no longer be perceived by the taste-testers.